Zum Film: Author:

http://www.lai.fu-berlin.de/homepages/john/Dissertationsprojekt/index.html

camera & editing: Thomas John, music: Yibel Jmetik Banamil, 2012

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Zum Thema

This video was produced by Thomas John while doing fieldwork on indigenous media and art practices in Chiapas (Mexico). The Tzotzil Rock band Yibel Jmetik Banamil ("raíces de la madre tierra") is giving a rock concert at the village feast of the Tzotzil community "La Candelaria" in the highlands of Chiapas. The band mixes traditional instruments and melodies with the music genre "rock" and they "rock" in Tzotzil language. The local village authorities of the community La Canderaria recognized the rock band as cultural bearers and invited them to their village. Contrarily to the earlier years of the band, nowadays there is a broader acception of their practices, since the traditional authorities appreciate "Tzotzil-Rock" as a form to maintain the local language among yongsters. 

Chiapas is the southern most state of Mexico, location of several contemporary Mayan groups and other so-called 'indigenous' societies. Broader research interest have been indigenous artists & media-producers, and their role of establishing and articulating own modernities and young indigenous contemporaneities.

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